Heeeey everybody! It's me again! I'm back! Sorry for the two year silence on this but that's how I roll. I figure if Katherine Dunn can take like 10 years to write Geek Love I can take 2 to write this bullshit. I also feel like that sort of thing isn't that weird in fanfiction? Or writing in general. And it doesn't help I'm an extremely slow writer to begin with even when I'm working really hard. Also the last row of my keyboard doesn't work. Fortunately computers these days come with an on screen keyboard I can use to fill in the missing letters until I can get like a used plug in board because fixing things is money. So if anything really weird happens, for example: y nae is addie and soeties I get ery ad at loud noises. See? Keys quit on me. And my quotation mark key and my semicolon key. I'm being pretty diligent about it but I'm not perfect. So go, let the legend come back to life.
Severus knew Tommy killed every animal he could get his hands on and around, ever since he was at least seven. Thankfully he only did it when they were out of the school for the year. God knows he didn't want him trying to strangle something that could actually hurt him. He first stumbled upon the behavior one afternoon when he needed to go to the garden shed. He had been drying some belladonna there because he hadn't wanted his son to get into it. Tommy was an energetic and curious boy; as such he had a tendency to get into everything, especially if it was dangerous. Severus always tried to write the behavior off as a child's natural fascination with anything that wasn't allowed. But thankfully he was young still and precautions didn't have to be overly complicated. He only kept the shed locked with a normal padlock; he didn't see much reason to use heavy magic to keep it shut. So naturally it came as a surprise to find five mutilated squirrels deliberately piled in the corner. At least there were five tails, which was really the only obvious thing to identify them as squirrels. There could be bits and pieces of other animals in there as well for all he knew. For all that he cared to know, really. He didn't for a second question where they could have come from. He could feel it, like a worm in the back of his mind, wriggling and gnawing at his conscience. Tommy did this. Tommy got in the shed somehow and all this stinking, rotting mess was left by him like some macabre arts and crafts project. He felt the bile rise in his throat. That strange, bitter tang resting on the back of his pallet. God damn it, god damn it why?
Furiously he stormed back into the house to confront his son. He found him in the kitchen (where I killed my own father, he thought) sitting at the table flipping through a picture book innocently enough. Sunshine poured through the window, highlighting not only Tommy but the dust particles floating through the air. In that second, even to his own eyes, his son seemed so strange, so foreign an object in his house. In so surreal a moment he just stood there, wondering. Who is this boy in my house? Is it his skin that makes up the dust therein? Maybe he was always here, this warped specter, this strange parody of a happy childhood. Etched into the liminal space of my home in stark black and white. Will this creature, this thing from my own womb, haunt me endlessly?
"Tommy!" he yelled. His son's face tilted towards him, his eyes fixed on Severus, pupils readjusting to the distance, the change of light. That strange state was broken then, reality set cruelly back in. "What the hell is that pile in the back of the shed?" He didn't need to yell to show how angry he was, but he needed to be angry to hide how afraid he was. To his knowledge Tommy had never seen anything die, didn't have a reason to want something dead, should have no reason to even think about killing anything. He recalled Tom saying something about an early hobby of his that consisted of catching and killing as many rats as he could in the orphanage, keeping track of how many he could get in a day and how creative he could make their deaths. At the time it made him smile, but looking at his own child unknowingly copying his father scared him. He could practically hear Tom telling him it was all in good fun, boys will be boys, let him play as he likes. He would have been so proud that his son had the same idea as him.
"I was just doing what you do. You cut things up in the shed too, Mum." Tommy had the gall to look innocently up at him, completely unfazed by his outburst, staring almost blankly up at him. It was eerie to have someone look at you with your own eyes, like a part of you was had somehow slipped away and was acting of its own volition, like he couldn't control his own body and it was now roaming free and mindless, leaving destruction in its path. Tamping down the odd sensation creeping up his spine, Severus did his best to focus on the situation at hand.
"Yes, but I cut things up for a reason, Tommy!" He yelled desperately at his son. Please god say he would understand and stop, he thought. Please god say that this was just a fluke, an accidental slip of genetics, one that they could shove down. They could just pretend it never happened. "What I'm doing and what you're doing are very different things! I'm building stores for the semester! And it's just plants! Why did you kill the squirrels? How did you even get in there?"
"Plants aren't challenging; they're just there. It's harder to catch animals so it's more fun," he explained with a child's simplicity. "And I only had to hold the lock and want it to open as hard as I could. And it opened." He supposed he should be proud that his son was displaying such an aptitude for magic at such an early age, but damn it if the boy didn't know exactly the wrong way to use it.
Severus buried his face in his hands, scrubbed at his eyes. Okay. Okay. He was just bored... They could deal with that. He could teach him something. Take him to collect supplies, teach him basic techniques in…something. Yes, he nodded his head, that was something he could deal with. Tommy was standing before him then, head coming just to his knee. He would be tall when he was grown. He crouched in front of his son, placing his hands on those tiny, fragile shoulders. His own hands, long and thin and spider legged, covered them without hindrance. Sometimes Severus felt so young, but here was youth pristine, personified, staring at him with its round, expectant face. "You can't do anything like that ever again. I forbid it," he gently chastised. "It was wrong and it was bad. Do you understand me?"
"I understand, Mum. I won't do it again." That tiny face smiled up at him, serene and happy as can be.
Severus removed his hands from his child and nodded to himself again. Yes, everything was going to be okay (for now) he decided, tucking a lock of his own hair behind his ear, feeling relief seep into the cracks of his nervousness, smoothing them over, hiding them from view. Everything was going to be okay.
In retrospect, he should have had him promise.
It was 8 A.M. and Severus woke to the sound of high, shrill animal shrieks and a steady thud, thud, thud. With his child in the house naturally his first instinct was fight. All he could think of was that his son was in danger from something. It didn't matter what because whatever it was it was would be dead. Plain and simple. He grabbed his wand in his tightest grip and burst through his bedroom door, flying down the stairs, chasing after the source of the sound. Through the parlor and into the kitchen, heart racing, eyes wild, and wand outstretched and ready.
There wasn't any need. His fingers lost their grip, his wand fell to the ground like a useless stick with a hollow click clack.
There was his son, the person he had been so desperate to protect, perfectly safe, perfectly content. However the same could not be said about the live rat he was nailing to the wall. Tommy had one hand stretched out over the poor thing to hold its writhing from in place, his other holding the hammer at the ready for another swing. The nail in the rat's chest was bent and crooked, its stem bent at at odd angles from his yet unskilled hands hitting it at the wrong angle. Blood ran down the wall in a great streak, pooling on the cheap tile floor.
The rat was still alive somehow. Tommy must have missed anything immediately fatal when he impaled it. Severus had to wonder if his son had done that on purpose to prolong the suffering, to wring as much twisted enjoyment out of it as possible. The idea that he was developing a taste for sadism so young made a knot form in the back of his throat, made his fingers curl into nervous fists. He had known more than his fair share of sadists in his time, understood the ruthless brutality with which they operated. Knew that they were never satisfied with the amount of suffering they caused to others. How was he supposed to stop his son from becoming that? Was there any way to stop it?
Pushing down the nausea, fear, and panic Severus strode forward and pulled his son away from his ghastly task. He forcibly turned the boy to face him, noting the flecks of dark blood speckling his otherwise clean, pale face. A sick parody of freckles. "What in the name of god do you think you're doing!" he raved hysterically.
Tommy regarded him as calmly and innocently as he ever did, still casually holding the grisly hammer in his left hand. "I wanted to see how long it would take to die," he said with a shrug.
God damn it, god damn it how could this be happening? Why was this happening again? "Tommy, you said you wouldn't do anything like this again! I forbid you from ever doing this again!"
"I know. I went to get rid of all the traps because I said I'd stop! But there was the rat in one and it seemed like a waste not to. This is the last one, I swear! I absolutely swear!" he cried up at him, eyes wide and watering.
Fuck. Shit fuck. Severus pulled at his own hair, lightly pressed his thumbs into his eyes, shook his head and tried not to hyperventilate. How long had been trapping animals? How had he not noticed? God damn it, god fucking damn it! One instance could be a mistake, an outlying incident. Twice was the beginning of a pattern. If he didn't do something now, it was going to spiral out of control. He had to show that there were consequences to behavior like this. But how in the hell was he supposed to impart the dire ramification of torture to a seven year old? He absolutely refused to use corporal punishment. He knew from experience that violence only begat violence, knew that after the blood dried and the bruises faded the resentment continued to infect, ate its way right into the bone and took hold like a cancer, burning away inside of you. Severus would give his son no further want to spill blood. He needed to do everything he could to stop the cycle of violence that had, in a way, created Tommy.
He knelt in front of Tommy and gently pried the hammer out of his hand. He could feel the warm, sticky blood half dried on the handle. "This. Cannot. Keep. Happening." He said with as much emphasis as possible. "You are grounded. For the next two weeks you may only leave the house to accompany me. And you have to do whatever I say or chore I assign. Otherwise you'll be stuck in here longer. Do you understand this time? Really truly understand?" He stared his son right in the eye, watching every minute twitch and flutter, hopping for some sign of that this time he really understood.
Tommy broke eye contact and nodded his head in dejection. Severus was proud of him for not arguing back, for not challenging his authority. Surely that meant he was getting through to him, that he understood what he was doing was wrong. This was just an odd phase, a passing nightmare that had to be weathered. They would be okay.
The next two weeks passed quietly. In addition to his usual lessons, Severus tried to cultivate in his son an interest in botany. Despite Tommy's previous claim that plants were boring, he hoped that the search for specific kinds would interest him. True, you didn't have to hunt them down or outwit them, but there was satisfaction to be had in finding the correct one at least. He would take him into the wood, point out useful but innocuous specimens and how best to harvest them, how to preserve them. He showed him the basic spells needed to process them (he avoided anything that involved any knives or cutting, no need to tempt the child). When they were home he would make him scrub floors and windows. Some days he would clean dishes and make beds. He did so without argument or complaint, merely a silent acquiescence.
After the fourteen days clicked by without incident, Severus felt that his son had once again earned his freedom. There was, however, the added stipulation that he not wander too far from home. He had also put a tracking spell on him to alert him if the boy were to wander too far from his set range. He felt a little bad for penning him in, but it was for the best.
That afternoon found Severus in the parlor, reading an academic journal on recent potions research when the pounding on the front door began. It was erratic and insistent, hammering away on the cheap wood. A cold ball of dread sunk in his stomach then spread out from there, seeping into his blood, traveling up his spine and radiating into the roots of teeth, the tips of his toes. And he knew. He had no doubt about the reason for the pounding at the door. He took a deep breath and steeled himself for whatever terrible action he was going to face.
On the other side of the door stood an old woman, the skin of her face sagging, almost melted looking, as if it was trying to escape the sinew of her weak old bones. Her iron gray hair permed into tight curls against her scalp.
"Is this boy yours?" she asked. In her left hand she held Tommy's tiny, fragile child wrist, wrinkled fingers completely enclosing the delicate joints. Severus had to wonder what Tom would have done to someone who touched their son without express permission. He imagined the woman's blood and organs painting the doorway, hair and intestines all slung about like crepe paper at a cheap party.
"What's he done?" he asked in reply, leaning forward to prise away his son from her grip. Her fingers gave way easily enough and Tommy quickly slipped in behind him, peaking out around his side to watch the confrontation.
"Caught him with his hands 'round my cat's neck. Mrs. Davis down the street hasn't seen her cat in days and I think I know why. You 'ought to keep that little monster inside before he hurts someone."
Abruptly he slammed the door in her face. Just because his son was a monster didn't mean some old muggle bitch from down the lane could manhandle him. Tommy was still his son-
Tommy was his son. Tommy was his son and he didn't have a fucking clue what to do with him. It wasn't like there was anyone he could go to for advice. And if he could what would he even say? How long is the time out for animal torture?
Severus slid to the floor, slowly deflating and crumpling in on himself, wrapped his arms around his knees and pressed his face in them, completely defeated. Fuck you, Tom, you did this to us. Our son is a psycho and I can't fucking deal with him. Nothing I do is going to make him alright. Severus lifted his head to look at his child. Tommy had crouched in front of him and was watching intently, almost like this was an interesting story and he was excited to know the ending, like this wasn't real. Like this whole thing was just a play for his amusement and none of it mattered.
"Tommy-"
"It's alright, Mum; she didn't hurt me. She was mostly just very loud," he said in his most reassuring voice, lips pulling into a wide smile.
"That's good," he murmured back. He didn't know what else to say. Maybe as long as it wasn't other people it wasn't that big of an issue. Maybe whatever demons his son had could be sated with animals. He supposed he could deal with that.
Tommy pulled Severus' left arm away from his knee and nestled in its crook. Warm and soft and small. He could deal with the occasional animal carcass, he supposed.
A week from that that day there was another knock on the door. This time soft and polite, a gentle if insistent query for his attention. When opened it revealed two children. Two normal, easy to raise muggle children. A girl in a jean jumper, hair as fine and golden as corn silk pulled back from her oval face, skin slightly bronzed from the summer sun. With her stood a boy, obviously a few years younger. Hair a mousy brown, radiating from a center point on his skull. His face had a squashed look about it, like a bike tire had run over an over ripe pumpkin. For a moment he felt a stirring of vanity; Tommy was a much more handsome boy than this one.
"Excuse us, Sir," the little girl asked, voice small but clear. "Have you seen out puppy? He went missing three days ago from the front garden." Her hand stretched out to produce a picture, the edges frayed from over handling and perhaps the worrying fingers of distressed children. He didn't bother to really see much beyond that.
"Haven't seen it, sorry," he answered. Dejectedly, the pair turned away, feet shuffling over the cracked, uneven concrete of his sidewalk. Severus had a very strong feeling that they would never find it. He still might though.
